R. David Hayward is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. His primary areas of research include the social psychology of religion and health and group processes in religious congregations, with a methodological focus in longitudinal survey research and hierarchical/multilevel statistical modeling.

Before coming to Michigan, David was a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University Medical Center (first with the Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health, and later with the Neuropsychiatric Imaging Research Laboratory). He received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno in 2008, and his B.A. in Psychology at Ohio University in 2003.